Dear readers!
I must confess, to feeling a little guilty not having posted sooner, considering the state of the world: That is being trapped in my apartment!
I should also admit that all the being at home has made me a little uneasy, quite restless, and perhaps even a little less sensible than usual. So bear with my, my dear readers. Join me on a journey of a post that is more “stream of consciousness” than my usual writings and try to be compassionate with your author as she struggles with all these uncomfortable feelings and sensations.
***
I have a sister who lives in the USA and I had emailed her about a week or two ago and to see how she was holding up with the pandemic (although at the time of my email I don’t know if we were calling it that yet). I had written to her that I felt every day I was waking up in a strange dream. My sister replied that it’s not a dream, but a war. She felt it was WWIII. Now, the other world wars were divided into sides and we all knew who was the enemy and who wasn’t. People were bombed and shot, and it was outside forces that attacked. In the case of a virus it’s even worse than a civil war, as the battle is being waged inside our very selves.
Of course some of the obnoxious parts of war are rearing their ugle heads even now, in our current situation: people reporting on those not listening to regulations, buying obscene amounts of food and paper goods, and the like. It is strange to think about an enemy I cannot see. It is bizarre to contemplate that perhaps I have the virus without symptoms, and it violates me silently without me knowing. How do we wage war on something we cannot see? How do we battle an invisible agent?
And yet there is small comfort that I get from realizing the demon this time is not man. There are no guns that threaten me, or knives to menace me. My adversary is tiny and disgusting, but does not plan or plot. There is no moral ground on which to be upset, and no ethical questions to hurl at this criminal. He strikes all the same, he does not make room for politics or religion. There is no “side” to be on, except the side of humanity. Humanity as one large whole, a sum of its parts. There is rugged beauty in this.
I cannot seem to stop myself from asking. How is it that such a tiny little virus stumps humankind in 2020? We have been to the moon and back, we have cars that drive themselves and the internet. We have computers and phones who sync and we have prosthetic legs that allow people missing limbs to run in races. We have X-rays and conveyor belts. We use Zoom and have global stock markets. The pandemic seems almost medieval. We are not accustomed in the 21st century to defeat by disease. We have vaccines, and antibiotics. We use steroids and NSAIDS. We have chemotherapy and radiation. We can keep cancers at bay, and repair brain damage, but suddenly we cannot fight a cold? This is unbearably troubling, and ever so confusing.
***
I do not shutter my windows;
I wash my hands
I do not wait for rations;
I buy respectfully, one member per cart
I do not dawn a uniform,
I put on pajamas
I do not line up for the draft,
I go home and wait on my couch
Those who once were the supporters,
They are now the front line
***
I guess I already knew that I was a social creature, and yet I thought I would be prepared to stay at home. I grew up unschooled, and am sure I spent weeks at home sometimes. But that was different. And it is not that I am bored at home, I have what to do and occupy myself. But my world feels surreal, and I guess I have learned that freedom is not only a physical thing, it is a state of mind. It is the knowledge that I “can” do something or go somewhere and not the actual going or doing that makes me free. It is absurd that the same action (sitting on my couch) can sometimes feel like the epitome of freedom, but today it feels like the embodiment of imprisonment.
And I think I understand my little sister now, with her need to have a car and be able to move around on her schedule, and at her discretion. Because although me taking the bus to the mall or me driving to the mall ends up with the same outcome, it’s really not the same at all.
***
I open the window to write this post, and the breeze crashes into me. I gulp in fresh air, like a drowned woman and try not to cough with it. That would be bad, in these times you see. Coughing has just about become a crime, or an admittance to a crime. But I digress.
I guess this whole post is kind of one big digression, isn’t it? Trying to organize chaos is, at some point, futile. There are bright spots, Zoom conversations with family members the world over, who I rarely speak with, and lots of reading. But there is a forign and new anxiety and sense of dread that I am not used to.
This unease is wretched, as I find myself literally itching with uncertainty and beginning to feel sick with worry. All these unknowns, and I am just a millennial not used to unknowns on this magnitude. I am also having a rough time making decisions with so much conjecture and so little fact. I am an individual who has recently began working in earnest on decision making in my personal life, and this pandemic has thrown me into a lot of upheaval in this area.
I hope I can take from all that is happening a big dose of compassion. I hope I will remember inthe future the weeks where suddenly I identified with the Germaphobes (heck, the whole planet did) and I will recount the days that I suddenly understood anxiety on a personal level. I hope I take this with me, and it assists me in my journey of being Human.
And there is yet more irony: It is the disease from the animals that is teaching us what it means to be human. It is a zoonotic plague that is causing society to ask itself who should decide who lives and dies? Who do we protect and why? The ultimate questions for man have been raised by animal.
***
I don’t want to write only sad or depressing things, but I confess that although the sun shines, I feel overcast inside my apartment. There is so much opposing symbolism I am seeing everywhere. I hope next time I pen words on my blog they will be after spending time in the park or market, or having come home from a day at work or school.
I would like to end with two photographs I took yesterday on a short walk by my apartment. I have taken to calling these walks “sanity” walks because I feel without them I will go insane.
Photograph one: Mask on Pavement
Photograph two: Man and Nature
I remain yours etc,
Shira
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